Parents of teens probably knew this already, but the Pew Research Center just confirmed it for everybody: YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are US 13-17 year-olds’ top social media picks now – at 85%, 72% and 69%, respectively. That’s a...

You may be wondering what, if any, impact Europe’s sweeping new data law, GDPR (for General Data Privacy Regulation), has on parenting tech users in your life. After all, it went into effect today, and you may’ve seen headlines like the New...

The Art of Screen Time, by NPR’s Anya Kamenetz, could not be more timely. What with hearings and headlines about digital privacy, so much talk about “tech addiction,” and bad advice about “screen time,” parents deserve thi...

What the Cambridge Analytica story and last week’s congressional hearings with Facebook’s CEO are really all about is that people – not even “just” social media users, voters and policymakers – are waking up to the m...

The “Cambridge Analytica scandal,” as seen in so many headlines, is giving way to a more thoughtful – and crucial – international discussion about not only data privacy but an even bigger question: where our social development i...

The US students who walked out of schools nationwide in protest against gun violence yesterday have counterparts in many other countries. On March 24, young activists all over the world will be staging events in support of the March for Our Lives movem...

The US students who walked out of schools nationwide in protest against gun violence today, March 14,  have counterparts in many other countries. On March 24, young activists all over the world will be staging events in support of the March for Ou...

They were historic conversations on many levels, and not just because 11 British Members of Parliament flew across the Atlantic to hold hearings with Google, Twitter and Facebook executives (as well as scholars, journalists and news publishers) at Geor...

It’s like a moral panic on steroids. Adding to the “reckoning” already under way since the 2016 election (see Related links below) is the news yesterday of a new, high-profile coalition of some of social media’s creators and bac...

Even people under 18 would probably say we adults are getting smarter in the way we’re viewing cyberbullying (we could ask them [#stuvoice @stu_voice]!). That is, if they knew there’s growing consensus among researchers in many countries th...

In March 2013, in a flurry of days, I decided to start a research institute. I’d always dreamed of doing so, but it was really my amazing mentor and boss – Jennifer Chayes – who put the fire under my toosh. I’d been driving her ...

I left the Media Lab 15 years ago this week. At the time, I never would’ve predicted that I learned one of the most useful skills in my career there: demo-or-die. The culture of “demo-or-die” has been heavily critiqued over the years....

We need: Recognition, Repentance, Respect, and Reparation. To be honest, what surprises me most about the current conversation about the inhospitable nature of tech for women is that people are surprised. To say that discrimination, harassment, and sex...

I was 19 years old when a some configuration of anonymous people came after me. They got access to my email and shared some of the most sensitive messages on an anonymous forum. This was after some of my girl friends received anonymous voice messages d...

There’s a joke out there that when you’re having your first child, you tell everyone personally and update your family and friends about every detail throughout the pregnancy. With Baby #2, there’s an abbreviated notice that goes out ...

… And Why We Need a Hacker Mindset I am surrounded by people who are driven by good intentions. Educators who want to inform students, who passionately believe that people can be empowered through knowledge. Activists who have committed the...

Yesterday, Steve Bannon clearly articulated what many people have felt and known for quite some time when he told journalists, “You’re the opposition party. Not the Democratic Party… The media’s the opposition party.” Thi...

The United States has always been a diverse but segregated country. This has shaped American politics profoundly. Yet, throughout history, Americans have had to grapple with divergent views and opinions, political ideologies, and experiences in order t...

Anxious about the widespread consumption and spread of propaganda and fake news during this year’s election cycle, many progressives are calling for an increased commitment to media literacy programs. Others are clamoring for solutions that focus...

For most non-technical folks, “hacking” evokes the notion of using sophisticated technical skills to break through the security of a corporate or government system for illicit purposes. Of course, most folks who were engaged in cracking sec...